Like many fair and delicate-looking women she coloured vividly and the flush coloured her throat. Her husband watched her with a suspicious and angry frown, very different from the laughing, mocking one he usually showed her.
"Sir Albert Gerald passed this place accidentally," she said, "he did not know we were here. He spoke to me for a little while, then he went away."
"Indeed! and what makes you turn as red as a peony, because I found this out, eh?"
"You look so strange," she said, frightened a little by his manner.
"Do I? Do you suppose I can look pleased when I see that this man's visit has such power over your cold and indifferent nature, and that for him you tremble and blush, while for me——? Where is this man?" and he rose and went towards the door.
"He has gone to England," said Margaret, gently. "He passed by the purest accident and saw me; he did not know that I was married.... He went away at once."
"Oh! and what did it matter to him whether you were married or unmarried?" he said, angrily; "was he your lover?"
"I never knew it till——" Margaret was too truthful to shirk a direct question.
"Well, be good enough to speak; if you do not——" and he moved close up to her.
His threat gave Margaret courage.